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197 creative works found
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it’s easy to only focus on the sadness inherent in an old derelict building like teton. / when you know the misery in the history of a asylum, and you see / only the ruins of what it once was, you sometimes become blinded / by the macabre and morose, by thwarted hopes and unchecked corruption. / if this is all you see – in an abandoned building, in your own life, in the world around you / it’s easy to feel that perhaps it would be best to erase it all, to hide everything away / so deep that it can’t encroach upon your fleeting comforts and contentment. / but, in this place where such terrible, tragic things occurred / there is something else that resides there – sometimes in the brilliant green ivy / that works its way into cracks and crevasses the way lovers’ fingers entwine, / sometimes in the softness of the wind, or the stillness of untouched afternoon sunlight – or / the way gravity welcomes the falling rafters back to the earth and time / absolves its past in the oblivion of unmolested sleep. teton had such beauty – in / the sincerely charitable ambitions that built it, in the graceful forms of its architect’s true design, / in the naive hope of the many who genuinely believed it could bring a cure for the ill, / and in those confined who stole friendships and dignity from the greedy hands of / disgrace and neglect. if you can’t see these things, you’ll never understand why i do what i do. / photographs capture slivers of time. they preserve a point of view, a moment / that would otherwise be forever lost. if you seek truth through them, / maybe you can illuminate the soul of a thing, and maybe show someone else / the proud glory and splendor of the forgotten and forsaken. / the triumphs and frailties of human endeavor may now be heard only in echoes, / but i guarantee you if you are quiet and you listen / you will hear not screams of agony and anguish, but the sweet serenity of final release. / if you approach the past with humility and reverence in your heart you’ll realize that / immortality is not something anyone can ever capture – but if you are very lucky, / through a photograph perhaps you may capture a glimpse, / a fleeting moment of something that, in its own abstract and inexplicable way, / proves beyond a doubt that nothing ever dies. / —-—-—-—-—-—-- photo taken at teton state hospital / more of my work is on www.abandonedamerica.org / please check out my new book, filled with photos and text – the link is on my site’s main page!
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photo taken at rosevale institution if you get a chance, my new book is available, please take a look at: / www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/494773 you can read about it there, but it has a lot of high quality prints of my work. and as always, please visit my site abandonedamerica.org if you’d like to see more of my work. thanks and i hope you have a great holiday.
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A brief candle; both ends burning / An endless mile; a bus wheel turning / A friend to share the lonesome times / A handshake and a sip of wine / So say it loud and let it ring / We are all a part of everything / The future, present and the past / Fly on proud bird / You’re free at last. - written by Charlie Daniels, en route to the funeral for his friend, Ronnie Van Zant of the band, Lynyrd Skynyrd. / —-—-—-—-—-—-—-- / all rights reserved. photo taken at teton state hospital. / more of my work is available at www.abandonedamerica.org
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Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men. ~Herodotus more of my work is viewable on www.abandonedamerica.org
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photo taken in the communicable disease hospital at isle de las gaviotas / perhaps one of the most difficult locations to access that there is :) / more of my work is on my website, www.abandonedamerica.org
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we were all so addicted to spectacle: / the drama of the media and celebrity lives, our / huge cineplexes and large-screen tvs, the / cacophony of arena concerts and the overblown importance / we gave our own silly little struggles. / we were like the romans with their bread and circuses / we were in the colosseum enjoying our pageants and staged conflicts / while all the signs around us were pointing one way: / to our own ruin. / there came a point, however, when we could no longer ignore / the fact that we were addicted to poisoning everything that was vital to us. / food stopped growing in the tainted soil, the air itself became toxic, waters rose and cities fell / you would have thought with our taste for the electrifying harmony of discord / that we would have revelled in it, but it was all so different / when the show finally began. / there was no audience to witness it for we were all playing a part. / we were the ones on the stage, and the / epic tragedies being played out / were now our own lives. / -—-—-—-—-—-—-— / photo taken in juanita de brogas magnet middle school / more of my work is on www.abandonedamerica.org
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easily one of the grandest and most ornate asylums ever built, / algonquin river state hospital was a cause of great local controversy during construction / due to running far over budget. the extravagance is evident in the beautiful masonry, / the ornamental woodwork, the stained glass windows with their decorative yet functional iron grating. / olmsted, the man who designed central park, laid out the grounds and the span of the wings / is half a mile, if you walked end to end. / to do so now is impossible. / in an ironic twist, the much-contested (and extremely expensive) yellow pine floors / fared far less impressively over time than those made of other, cheaper materials. / the epic scale of the structural collapse, combined with a devastating fire last summer, / make algonquin river state hospital quite possibly the most deadly building in existence. / floors like the one shown here / give way into gaping abysses, punji pits full of sharp, splintered boards / fanning out from the basement like jagged teeth in the ever-hungry mouth of death itself. / to take this photo i had to make it from the crumbling doorway on the left / onto the sagging mess in the extreme foreground. the floor shifted beneath my feet / and my added weight sent dust and debris cascading ominously into oblivion below. / it was quite possibly the most frightening moment of my life, second only to the one / where i had to get back into the doorway with no real solid ground to support me as i inched closer. / i may not be terribly afraid of death. i may even frequently wish for it. / i am, however, afraid of being paralyzed, of falling onto a rotted shard of floorboard and / laying impaled and broken for hours, with no real help available. i am not too proud / to admit that i wanted nothing more than to stay in the relative safety of the door frame, / or that i am glad that i will never again have to make the nerve-wracking leap of faith / back to the only exit. / that being said, i would do it again if i had to. there is no better example than algonquin / that all things fall apart, and i feel a certain kinship with it. we are both collapsing inside, / and it is an odd thing to see before your very eyes what you imagine / your own heart looks like. / very odd indeed. / —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-- photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. all rights reserved. / more of my work is available on abandonedamerica.org
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if one cares at all for the truth, it is important / to periodically step back and look at what defines / the world around us, and by extension, ourselves. / in algonquin river state hospital’s case, it is defined by / its grand ambitions and idealistic foundation / and now, by the collapse of these noble ambitions. / it is a place haunted by the scores of tragedies that litter its past, / by its inability to integrate into the world around it, / and its inevitable decline into obsolescence and disrepair - / much like me. / if i were to be honest, i don’t want to see it demolished, / but i don’t want to see it restored either. / it is what it is because of these things, / and its status as some behemoth / enshrouded in its own obscurity and decay makes it / larger than life, legendary even. / to tear it down to make some development or store / seems so pedestrian, insultingly dull, in much the same way as / trying to undo all of the damage wrought upon it, / cleaning it and sterilizing it and packaging it for the masses / ultimately belittles what it truly is. you may look at it / and wince at the sheer scale of the calamity it has become, / but no matter what you think it has finally revealed its true nature, / and has become something far more intricate and ornate / than our ordinary world, / with its gray cubicles and prefabricated sentiments, allows. / to see algonquin river state hospital, you have to actively seek it, / much like you are making a pilgrimage to some hallowed site / that is a shrine to all that fails, all hopes that are smashed by time. / to change it, to ‘save’ it, ultimately destroys it anyway. / and so too, i suppose there is something necessary about / my own longing to leave this world. if i were not consumed by my / relentless desire for my own destruction, why would i seek such things? / sometimes it is the very things that eat us apart, / that ultimately kill us, even, that are our own defining characteristics. / i have no delusions about my own greatness, or lack thereof, but nevertheless / if edgar allen poe wouldn’t have followed a trajectory that left him / dead in some back street’s gutter, if van gogh hadn’t followed a path / of loneliness so severe that it drove him mad - / would we ever know of their works? would they even have accomplished any? / i postulate that dissatisfaction is the mother of creation. / without it we have no incentive to create or to change, as / contentment is suspicious of change, lest it throw off comfortable equilibrium. / and so i suppose my own defining characteristics are a necessary evil. / were i to be happy, were i not to suffer, / this work that i do that defines me, that is paradoxically one of my only joys / would likely cease to be as well. / i don’t want to be a walmart, a business park, a playground. / when i am gone, let it be left to those few who care / to wonder at what drove me to do what i do, and / what frightening and magnificent things i saw in places like this. / i have chosen this path and where it will lead me, all in the hope that / it will entertain, edify, and maybe even enlighten / those of you gracious enough to join me and peer into my life through / the small window of my camera’s lens. / this is my downward spiral in all its splendor, friends. / enjoy. / -—-—-—-—-—-——- / photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. / more of my work is online at www.abandonedamerica.org
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there is something eerie about staring down through / the remains of rooms where the flooring has collapsed. / it goes beyond the mortal fear of falling and death, / beyond the realization that there but for the grace of god go i. / maybe there is some inate sense that this is not something that is or should be possible. / it is like staring through holes torn in the fabric of different dimensions / and it throws off your balance and perspective, leaving everything askew. / splintered shards of boards jut off at illogical angles, / heavy radiators dangle from pipes like rusted fruit on steel vines, / and doorways swing outward into cavernous voids. / people once walked, talked, worked, and slept / along these planes now almost entirely inaccessable to man. / distant portals open to rooms and wards whose secrets will remain hidden / until they are erased by decay, by fire, by the wrecking ball. / there is always this pervasive sense that these are the areas where the answers lie, / that if one only pushes a little harder, takes a few more risks / this search for who knows what will produce some tangible results / and this consuming drive well somehow be rewarded with / reprieve, release, redemption. / this is the nature of my obsession. when you look at me, / you should see not what lies before you / my physical shell, a fragmented collection of skin and bones and blood. / you should see the conspicuous absence of what i was, what i could be, / of my very spirit, which has divorced itself from my corporeal form. / i once walked and talked, worked and slept along planes / now almost entirely inaccessable to man. / even now as we speak i am drifting somewhere, restless / stuck in limbo, in the space between floors. / -—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-— more available at my (recently updated) site, www.abandonedamerica.org / photo taken at algonquin state hospital / all rights reserved. may not be reproduced without permission.
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photo taken at haley boarding house / more of my work is on my website, www.abandonedamerica.org
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photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. / more of my work is available at www.abandonedamerica.org
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Thanks go to my very special model (who prefers to remain anonymous) for being so fab, and to her sister for the use of her shoes…oh, and kitchen! Image copyright © 2008 Tania Rose / Please note that copying, displaying or redistribution of this image without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited
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down and down and down i go / as i sink through the depths of the sea / there’s one thing left – it’s all i know: / you’re better off without me. / —-—-—-—-—-—-—- photo taken at haley boarding house if you get a chance, my new book is available, please take a look at: / www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/494773 you can read about it there, but it has a lot of high quality prints of my work. and as always, please visit my site abandonedamerica.org if you’d like to see more of my work. thanks and i hope you have a great holiday.
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photo taken at the isle de gavriotas communicable disease hospital. / more of my work is at www.abandonedamerica.org
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photo taken at algonquin state hospital. / more of my work is viewable at www.abandonedamerica.org
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photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. / more of my work is on www.abandonedamerica.org
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My soul is full of whispered song; / My blindness is my sight; / The shadows that I feared so long / Are all alive with light. / ~Alice Cary, Dying Hymn photo taken at isle de las gavriotas / more of my work is on www.abandonedamerica.org
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A large percentage of the world’s honeybees have been MIA lately. Nobody knows for sure what the causes are, and we are just beginning to grasp what the effects in long term may be, but I am absolutely certain of one thing – this can’t be good news for Winnie The Pooh! This was my first project for my Digital Illustration class with David Hylton. Pen & Ink drawing, scanned into Photoshop, then colored in using different textures from photographs. Turned out to be a pretty big hit among my peers :)
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photo taken at setting sun retirement home. / please come visit my site, www.abandonedamerica.org
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In any man who dies there dies with him / his first snow and kiss and fight…. / Not people die but worlds die in them. ~Yevgeny Yevtushenko, “People” photo of isle de las gaviotas’ morgue body tray drawers. / more work is viewable on my site, www.abandonedamerica.org
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The honeybee teaches about community and harmony. One lesson we can take from this is that the well-being of any community is dependent on the health and contribution of each of its members. One member cannot take on all the responsibilities, nor can one sit back and reap all the benefits without harming the community in a negative way. Another lesson is that sometimes one can work too hard, ignoring the others in the community who can contribute, risking their health from stress and depleted health. Think of the classic workaholic. Being part of a community means knowing you cannot do it all, and asking for help when it is needed. It also means to step up and help out those who need it. We can also learn from the honeybee about conserving and preparing for the future. By balancing working roles, the hive (the community) can run efficiently and create a harmonious living environment. To the Ancient Egyptians, honeybees were believed to be the tears of the sun god Ra and honey was believed to be a symbol of resurrection and protected against evil spirits. In Ancient Greece the honeybee was thought to be messengers for the gods. The Priestesses of the Oracle in Delphi were sought to answer questions about the future and past. The Priestesses sat on three-legged stools near a spot where sweet-smelling fumes rose up through an omphalos stone, which was hollow and shaped similar to a bee hive. The exterior of the omphalos stone was carved with the images of honeybees. The Honeybee was sacred to the Celtic goddess Brigid, who kept an orchard in the Otherworld, which was visited by bees. (The Honeybee, 5×7”, fresco (ink))
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